Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Baking With Kids: Vegan Sugar-Free Flapjacks

I recently made samosas from scratch for the first time, and while I was making them I got Ebony involved to keep her entertained. I set myself up on the dining table instead of the kitchen surface, and gave Ebony a chair to stand on. She had some pastry of her own to roll out, and some filling to use. She watched with interest, and copied my every move. She made a rectangle samosa which she then ate once it was cooked.

She seemed to really enjoy it, and I decided it was time we did some baking together. I bake quite a lot, I love making vegan cupcakes, cookies and cakes. The recipes I use are delicious but use a lot of sugar, and I wouldn't really want to give Ebony anything like that just yet. I wouldn't even want her to lick the bowl because of the amount of sugar I shovel into the butter cream, so I decided I'd have to make something sugar-free with her.

Ebony likes having muesli for breakfast, so I thought she might like flapjacks. The great thing about flapjacks is that they're easy to make, they last a while, they're tasty and (sort of) healthy. I got all the ingredients measured out and set everything up on the dining table. Ebony emptied all the ingredients into the mixing bowl and then mixed them together. Well, she ate most of the banana first, and her mixing skills leave a lot to be desired... quite a lot of the mixture ended up on the floor. I helped her spoon it into the loaf tin, and she grabbed handfuls and put them back in the mixing bowl. Eventually she understood that we were trying to put it into the loaf tin, and not smear it across her head.

This is the recipe we used:1 cup oats2 tbsp almond milk 1 tbsp peanut butter1 tbsp coconut oil1/4 cup vegan margarine (we used vitalite)1 banana sliced (a lot of this got eaten during the mixing process)1/2 cup chopped dates1/2 cup mixed raisins, nuts, cranberries, pumpkin seeds and currants 1 tsp cinnamon 1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Grease and line a loaf tin. 2. Mix all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.3. Spoon into the loaf tin and bake for 20 minutes.4. Allow to cool before cutting into slices. Keep refrigerated.

We had lots of fun baking, and the flapjacks were great. I wasn't expecting to eat any myself because I thought they'd taste like cardboard due to the lack of sugar, but they didn't. The dates give the flapjack a really sweet flavour.